Chapter 80: Mind Your Own Business

“Jiang Yan, you look so pretty when you smile!” Su Dai gazed at her with sparkling eyes, full of sincerity.

The compliment made Jiang Yan a little embarrassed.

Earlier, whenever she went out, she always wore a mask, so Ye Qing and Sun Jingtao had never seen her real face.

Plus, her phone had long since run out of battery, so even if Su Dai wanted to show off her idol to the other two, she had no way to do it.

But now, everyone had finally “met each other openly.”

Although their relationship hadn’t instantly become super close, it was clearly much warmer than it had been a few days ago.

After Jiang Yan finished laughing behind her hand, she glanced at the others and said, “Thank you all for today. I’ll head home now.”

Earlier, when she was threatened by Scarface, her man-eating flower had been itching to come out and finish him off, but she’d managed to hold it back.

Now she needed to go home and soothe her “baby.”

Besides, she’d worked up a sweat running up and down, and after being stuck in that “cesspit” for a while, she really wanted to go home and take a shower.

Hearing her polite words, Su Dai, full of loyalty, almost pounded her chest as she said, “Jiang Yan, you’re being too polite! We didn’t really help much! We just went down there to back you up, that’s all, haha!”

Watching his wife laugh so heartily, Sun Jingtao couldn’t help but smile in relief.

Ever since she’d lost the baby, Su Dai had gone through a period of depression.

She’d recovered eventually, but she was clearly not quite the same as before.

Now, even though they were living in the apocalypse, short on food and clothing, his wife’s mood and spirit had been getting better and better lately, and it was obvious that Jiang Yan was the reason.

It just went to show how powerful a role model could be.

Thinking of this, his gratitude toward Jiang Yan deepened even more.

“Jiang Yan, keep these spearguns.” Ye Qing, who had been quietly standing to the side, reached out and handed her the pile of spearguns they’d confiscated earlier when he heard she was leaving.

Su Dai immediately smacked his arm—not too hard, not too soft—and pretended to scold him, “Xiao Ye, mind your manners! Call her ‘big sister.’”

Ye Qing: “…”

“Calling her ‘big sister’ makes her sound old. Shouldn’t it be ‘missy’ or ‘big sis’?” Sun Jingtao joked, swept up in his wife’s playful mood.

Ye Qing glanced at Jiang Yan, whose face looked even younger than his own, swallowed, but in the end didn’t say anything.

The three others burst out laughing again.

The atmosphere was so warm and lively, it hardly felt like the apocalypse at all.

“Forget it, forget it, what you call me isn’t important. Names, titles, they’re just labels. Whatever rolls off the tongue is fine.” Jiang Yan changed the subject, took two spearguns from Ye Qing, and said, “I’ll just take these two. You guys keep the rest.”

Su Dai immediately protested, “Jiang Yan, how can we do that? Those are your spoils!”

“I can’t use that many anyway,” Jiang Yan replied with a smile.

She lacked for nothing in her space, least of all spearguns.

The ones Scarface and his crew had were mainly for small freshwater fish, with limited range and power.

The ones in her space, though, were custom-made for catching big saltwater fish—bigger, stronger, more powerful, with special harpoons and ropes.

They were much better for both fishing and self-defense.

But if she didn’t take any, it would look odd, so she just took two for show.

Su Dai wanted to argue more, but Sun Jingtao stopped her. “Let’s just accept them. Jiang Yan said we could have them, so we should. No need to stand on ceremony.” After that, he glanced warily at the fire escape before turning back to Jiang Yan. “Jiang Yan, there’s something else I wanted to tell you. Those people you ran into earlier—they’re not from our complex.” He paused, then continued, “To be precise, they’re a gang.”

Jiang Yan feigned surprise. “Oh?”

Usually, the word “gang” was reserved for people who committed crimes together.

“I only found out this morning when I went downstairs. They snuck into our complex when the rain let up, hiding in empty apartments with the help of Liu Dahong. After Liu and his crew died, they started getting bolder.

Now, it seems like they’ve taken control of all the apartments below the 20th floor. This group is actually a property management team outsourced by a local company called Golden Shield Security, and their leader is Ma Longbiao.

I’d heard of him before—he has a criminal record, even did time, and has been in the underworld for a while. Somehow, he managed to clean up his act, joined Golden Shield Security, and became the property manager for the complex next door.”

Clearly, Sun Jingtao had much more detailed info than she did.

But Jiang Yan didn’t really care about their names or criminal records.

After all, in the apocalypse, everyone’s hands were more or less stained with blood.

The difference was, some killed proactively, while others did it in self-defense.

But the end result was the same.

What interested her more was that this gang had taken over the lower floors.

She asked, “What do you mean by ‘taken control’?”

“They basically stay inside all day playing cards and sleeping, then every night at eight, they go around those floors collecting stuff. If you can’t hand anything over, best case you get beaten up, worst case—” Sun Jingtao didn’t finish, but everyone understood.

Jiang Yan was puzzled. “But after a few rounds of looting, wouldn’t the supplies run out? It’s not like people can just conjure things out of thin air.”

Over here in Qianshui Bay, especially in Building A, most of the apartments were large.

Even though it was far from downtown and the prices weren’t sky-high, the total cost was still considerable.

People who could afford to buy here generally weren’t poor.

Of course, some people had to scrape together every penny to buy a place, but most lived decently.

There was probably some jewelry or cash in every home.

But cash was useless now.

Assets in stocks, funds, or online banks were even more worthless.

At most, they could grab some useless jewelry or rice and flour.

Most other food had already spoiled in the earlier heatwave.

Sun Jingtao explained, “They don’t care. I only know the basics, but this gang is slowly expanding their control upward.

But apparently, Ma Longbiao has ordered his men not to mess with anyone on the 32nd floor. He said we should mind our own business—probably because he’s wary of your gun.

Since they don’t come out during the day, I didn’t think to warn you when you said you were going downstairs.

By the time I remembered, you’d already run into them, so we rushed down after you.”

——**——**——

Special Note: Some industries and characters in this story are purely fictional and bear no intentional reference to or defamation of any real persons or organizations."